Underground Grilled Cheese Takes Page From Dr. Claw’s Playbook, Comes to the East Village

July 28, 2010

Listen up, kids! In the time it takes you to slap some cheese between two slices of bread, grill the whole thing in butter, and cram it into your face, you can text someone to make the sandwich for you.

Bread.Butter.Cheese. is the latest “secret” food delivery service to take advantage of the average New Yorker’s lack of time and unstinting belief that foods procured in drug-deal-like circumstances just taste better.

According to its Facebook page, Bread.Butter.Cheese. is “an underground grilled cheese joint supplying downtown New Yorkers with their grilled cheese fix.” Customers text their orders in and then pick them up in the park on the corner of East 1st Street and First Avenue. Ingredients such as 18-month cheddar, jalapenos, Swiss Emmentaler, and caramelized onions are on the menu, and a variety of breads are also offered. Nowhere on the site is cost mentioned.

It was only a matter of time before someone — in this case, “someone” is named Ronnie — decided to follow in the Underground Lobster Pound’s circuitous and shadowy path. But while a truly good lobster roll is a relatively rare commodity in these parts, and making one at home is a pain in the ass, grilled cheese sandwiches — good grilled cheese sandwiches at that — aren’t exactly lacking in Manhattan, and even the most unambitious cook can melt cheese on bread. Still, plenty of people have a hard time resisting carbs weighted with hot, fatty fillings — and a harder time resisting the allure of prefabricated secrecy.